Our Young Officials project is designed to provide new ways for young people in England to engage as volunteers and leaders in sport. This will revolutionise the age profile of technical sports officials and promote rapid growth in the competitive sports opportunities available to young people throughout England. This is all of course against the background of the newly established annual UK School Games and London 2012.
Outcomes:
- Create new officiating qualifications specifically for young people, and create formal qualification structures which will educate young people how to progress further;
- Facilitate a gradual change in the demographic of technical sports officials, which will support the expansion of competitive opportunities for young people throughout England. These young people will take their training and skills into their communities through the network of School Sport Partnerships, and showcase their achievements at major sporting events to inspire healthy competition amongst other young people;
- Provide young people with a unique opportunity to influence and shape the work of England’s National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and help create a young people centred approach to sport.
Year 1 of the Young Officials Project is being funded by a grant from ‘V’ (the Russell Commission implementation body). During the first year of the project we are:
- Working directly with nine NGBs including disability sport;
- Deploying a full-time volunteer aged 20-24 to work collaboratively with each of the NGB’s in order to create a new Young Officials Award specific to each sport;
- Recruiting 1,000 16-19 year olds to undertake the Awards created, and then deploying these qualified Young Officials at school or NGB competition locally, regionally and nationally;
- Identifying circa ten young people from each sport who show the potential to become high level officials and provide them with additional support to accelerate them in to further officiating.
We plan to continue the project for a further two years to develop new awards in additional sports and disciplines. We would also like to recruit and deploy more young officials and create a sustainable pathway and more formalised structure into officiating for young people.
Click here to download a programme information sheet
For further information please contact Lousie Gruchy (Young Officials Development Manager) at: louise.gruchy@youthsporttrust.org